A new report suggests that Microsoft’s The Initiative, the studio developing a reboot of Perfect Dark, has suffered significant staff departures over the past 12 months. Staff are apparently leaving the company due to “a lack of creative autonomy and slow development progress.”

The report from VGC is complied from interviews with unnamed ex-Initiative employees and analysis of the studio’s structure. It notes that around 34 people have quit within the last year, including much of the senior design team. Game director Dan Neuburger appears to have left the team this year, and previous departures include design director Drew Murray, lead level designer Chris O’Neill, principal world builder Jolyon Myers, and several more from the core team. Additionally, VGC notes that two senior writers recently left, as well as the technical director, technical art director, lead gameplay engineer, lead animation, quality assurance lead, and more.

VGC’s interviews with former Initiative staff suggests that the departures have come “fast and furious”, something that has impacted the momentum of the project.

Reasons given for staff departures predominantly include a feeling that the studio was not a collaborative place to work. It was apparently built as a top-down hierarchy, starting with Neuburger and studio head Darrell Gallagher, who heavily dictated the creative decisions. Staff apparently felt unheard by their seniors on issues such as development priorities, project planning, and team staffing. The alleged result of this was a project that developed “painfully” slow and a lack of company culture.

“Making games is hard enough, let alone when you feel like you can’t get through to people making the decisions that affect everyone,” one source said.

VGC’s sources claim that the culture problem was part of the reason for bringing Crystal Dynamics on board as a collaborator studio. Gallagher and Neuburger were previously studio head and game director respectively at Crystal Dynamics, and It was hoped that a team familiar with their management methods would work well with them.

In a statement to VGC, Gallagher (who remains as studio head at The Initiative) said, “In this journey, it’s not uncommon for there to be staffing changes, especially during a time of global upheaval over the last two years, and there’s plenty more work in front of us to deliver a fantastic Perfect Dark experience to our players.

“We wish all our former colleagues the very best, and I’m confident in the team we have in place, the new talent joining, and we can’t wait to share more with the fans.”

The report’s sources suggest that the large change in staff and the inclusion of Crystal Dynamics may well have triggered an internal soft reboot of Perfect Dark, and that a final release could well still be years away.

Matt Purslow is IGN’s UK News and Entertainment Writer.